A Quote by Sophocles

For this I see, that we, all we that live, Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams.

Sophocles

Quote Topics

Dreams Live See Shadows Vain

Quote Author

Sophocles
Greek - Poet
496 BC - 406 BC

She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, ‘All are shadows!—all are passing!—all is past!

Elizabeth Gaskell

What labor and pains worldlings take to obtain the vain things of this life-to obtain the poor things of this world, which are but shadows and dreams, and mere nothings!

Thomas Brooks

Shadows in shadows He watches through dreams Wings black as Africa Body strong as stone Done waiting The ravens call.

P. C. Cast

Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.

David Hockney

I'm inspired by dreams and shadows, obsession and desire. By nature, I'm a dream collector and never stop working. I question people about their weirdest dreams and the strangest, most inexplicable experiences they've had. All this information whirls around in my mind, and new dreams emerge that form the seeds of stories and novels.

Storm Constantine

Barack and I see a future... where no one, no one is forced to live in the shadows of intolerance.

Joe Biden

We are finally living in Plato's cave, if we consider how those who were imprisoned within the cave - who could do nothing but watch those shadows passing on the back wall - were convinced that those shadows were their one and only reality. I see a profound similarity to all this in the epoch we're now living in. We no longer live simply through images: we live through images that don't even exist, which are the result not of physical projection but of pure virtuality.

Jose Saramago

I like to help others and count it as my greatest pleasure in life to see a person free himself of the shadows which darken his days. These shadows look so thick to him and weigh him down so that when he finds they are shadows and that he can see through them, walk through them and be again in the sun, he is enormously delighted. And I am afraid I am just as delighted as he is.

L. Ron Hubbard

And when we look in through the windows, all we see are shadows. And when we try and listen, all we hear is a whispering. And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have both won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.

Arundhati Roy

If I can stop one heart from breaking…” Emily Dickinson If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson

Illusions are shadows moving endlessly across the ground. The shadows are quite real but they're shadows. They have very little substance.

Frederick Lenz

Men throw huge shadows on the lawn, don't they? Then, all their lives, they try to run to fit the shadows. But the shadows are always longer.

Ray Bradbury

In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows.